“Salt Lake City” and “contemporary art” are rarely used in the same
sentence, but that may change. In 2008 the Utah Museum of Fine Arts
hired Jill Dawsey, formerly of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
as its first curator of modern and contemporary art, not long after
Brigham Young University had hired Jeff Lambson, a veteran of the
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., as its
museum’s first contemporary art curator. Around the same time, Adam
Price, a local litigator, started the experimental 337 Project, which
attracted huge lines for last June’s “Face Off at the Urban Gallery,” in
which nine local artists were each given a garage door and 18 hours to
complete a painting on it. Now the Salt Lake Art Center, the city’s only
venue dedicated to contemporary art, has tapped Price as its director.
This winter he’s leaving his practice to help the SLAC meet the
Mormon-dominated city’s surprising demand for the cutting edge.Don't miss our October 2009 fashion portfolio "Art and Commerce," featuring the chicest looks from the runways, photographed in museums and galleries around the world.
Photo: courtesy BYU
